


Keeping up appearances

by Alex_E



Series: The Crown [1]
Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: F/M, Love Triangles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 20:29:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15251442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_E/pseuds/Alex_E
Summary: Mariah watches them that is all she can do. Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.POV Mariah.





	Keeping up appearances

**Author's Note:**

> Au in which Mariah and Shades went legit during S2 and Mariah didn't go full blown psycho and Tilda and John are a happy couple. POV Mariah.

The thing with Harlem’s Paradise is it has too much glass. The big circular window cut out straight like an ever seeing eye is just an example. She feels like she is in a glass house sometimes. 

And people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

She can see them.

She can always see them.

She doesn't know if Hernan thinks she's blind, stupid or just straight up doesn't care. Day after day, they go on like this. The dark corners of the club are their favorite space, she knows……. she actually understands.

They keep giving each other these longing looks, the tension and love between them is almost tangible. Mariah hates that the most. She hates it because it makes her feel like a villain, like she stole something from Comanche. Then she has to remind herself that Hernan was hers before Comanche was released from prison. She doesn't want to think about the all years he was with Hernan before. She didn't steal.

She and Hernan spent the nights at Harlem's Paradise, pretending everything is alright. The barely cross paths, they never look for each other to rendezvous, they don't seek each other out to talk about their problems, and they never have dinner together.

Then again, they never had dinner together anymore before they made peace and went legit either. But somehow, it was more bearable with the looming threat of her family's legacy and Bushmaster (or better yet her new ‘son in law’) hanging over her. She didn’t feel so alone.

“Madam councilwoman is this seat taken?" Alex asked, giving her his most charming smile. 

"Only if you take it." She answered genuinely happy to see him.

"Tell me why such a beautiful woman like you is alone on a night like this?" he asked like he didn't know, looking at her with those deep brown eyes of his. She knew that from everyone else, it would be a casual question between two old co-workers, nothing important. It's different with him because whenever she looks into his eyes she feels like he might actually know her. He always carried a torch for her, always been loyal. It makes her feel special.

"I was supposed to meet Hernan for diner, but something came up…"

"So he had to go."

"Yeah." She whispered, a little ashamed to have to admit her lover dumped her for some gangster shit he could have passed on. Not to mention the fact that Comanche was following right behind him. Their attempt at being inconspicuous is downright laughable as it is embarrassing. Then she reminded herself of whom her company was and she knew there was no reason to be ashamed.

"His loss is my gain, he smiled. “Can I offer you some more wine?”  
She couldn't help but smile as he tells her everything he's working on in the city council. His eyes were lighting up like the sun bright and blinding at the same time. That is him, he is what he does and he is passionate about his job. She loves that about him. 

She should have know what would happen when he’d offered to walk her home.  
They reached the door of the brownstone and he hugged her. As they hugged she felt the electricity between them. She felt her body burning with desire, his eyes were closed, she heard a soft gasp escaping her lips. This was never supposed to happen.  
But it did happen and it is still happening.

It surprises her that Comanche is comfortable around her these days. She wonders if that's even normal, after all he's quite obviously in love with her other half. Still, lately they had been trying the 'friends thing'. It was all a pretense and she knew it, hell, even Comanche knew it, Hernan was oblivious. But if Mariah Stokes had learned anything at all these past few months of trying to repair her broken relations with her family was that, sometimes, the pretense was all that kept you going.

Pretending could actually count for hope? Was it the same thing?

She had remembered falling in love with Hernan herself the first time he showed up in her brownstone uninvited and unexpected. Telling her like it is. She couldn't remember falling out of love with him, though.  
He loves to get on everyone's nerves but to her he's always sweet and caring. He was her shoulder to cry on and one of the few people who could manage to get her to smile and mean it these days.

The press loved the family first initiative, loved her embracing her sins, they loved her relation with Hernan even more. She took her seat in the city council back with pride.  
The public loves a good comeback story. And Mariah always gives the people what they want.

Tonight, like every single night, she will go home to the lavish new townhouse she shares with Hernan. The cheating ‘wife” with the cheating gay ‘husband’.  
She build a new live just to find herself repeating the same mistakes again.  
Maybe the universe did have a sense of irony. She hated irony at the moment. Because at the moment, her life was a lie again, she hated her life, she hated herself. Most of the time, she hated Hernan.

She hates Hernan, because he didn't leave her. Mariah asked him to stay, when he wanted to go, she persuaded him when he wanted out.  
And she stayed as well and she fought, knowing neither of them really wanted her to. She wonders now, what she stayed for? So she could be a witness to him giving hungry stares at his lover, and their thrysts in those damned dark corners.

Sometimes, Hernan would spend time with her, make love to her and hold her afterwards. Other days, he would ignore her and look right through her, like she was invisible, like she was nothing.  
If there was one thing she couldn't deal with it was being ignored. She was not to be ignored.She hated the feeling, and looked for a way to make herself feel better. Right? That's who she was. 

While “Shades” was working hard, going after Bushmaster, dealing with Luke Cage and taking care of the business she felt neglected and like the spoiled girl she was she ran into to the nearest pair of arms. Right? That's what he must have thought, it was probably easier for him that way.

He had never asked. In all the time they lived together in her old brownstone, he never asked a thing about her affair with Alex. 

He constantly reminded her about it though, he would make some snappy comments here and there and throw some suspicious looks her way. But he never wanted to talk about it. Why it ever happened? What was she thinking? Did she actually feel anything for Alex? He had never asked.

That hurt her.

What hurt the most though, was keeping her mouth shut. She was in this relationship/arrangement, whatever this hell was, in this fight. Mariah Stokes didn't give up, oh no she was a fighter and a winner and she wasn't giving up even if her man was screwing Comanche yet again. Maybe she deserved it, she was an adulterous bitch after all. But now, so was he. Still he never asked, because he didn't want to know.

Even though he was a cheater too, he could still look down on her, because it had happened with someone he loved. He wasn't like her oh no he was in love, he had a relationship, not an affair. Comanche or Darius actually was someone he loved, while Alex was someone she did. So he was still better. 

He was sacrificing his happiness and his love to do the right thing and stay by her side to bring Harlem to greater heights, he was noble and a good man. She? She didn't deserve the chance that he was giving her, so she worked because that’s what she did and she was the one who had to work on keeping the image of Harlem's power couple allright. Appearances must be held up for the public.

Because he loves Darius.


End file.
